Updated: 11/25/2008 9:00:11 AM
By Kate Howard, The Tennessean
The National Transportation Safety Board is investigating the cause of a twin-engine plane crash that killed all three people on board Monday morning north of downtown Nashville.
Witnesses say the plane was spinning as it dropped into a tree line in Whites Creek and burst into flames about 10:45 a.m. on Laws Road.
Killed in the crash were the pilot and owner of the plane, Greg Secrest, 67; Rodney "Nick" Tillman, 49; and his wife, Rebecca Ann Tillman, 42.
The five-passenger Beech 55 was traveling from Hot Springs, Ark., where all three victims lived, to the Nashville International Airport.
Metro police say that Tillman and his wife were coming to Nashville for a business trip. Tillman was a co-owner in Earthbound Trading Co., which has a store in the Opry Mills mall.
It's not yet known whether there was a distress call from the small plane before the crash, although the pilot was in contact with the air traffic controllers in Nashville during the rainy, windy morning.
The pilot was qualified to fly in clouds and bad weather, said Les Dorr, a spokesman with the Federal Aviation Administration.
The NTSB was taking over the investigation Monday afternoon, Dorr said.
Dorr said it's always up to the pilot to decide whether to fly. The investigators will be looking at the weather conditions.
Mark Clayton was sitting in his Laws Road home when he heard, then saw, the plane coming down.
"It sounded like a tractor-trailer with a bad clutch," Clayton said. "It was flat and spinning for a few seconds, but it seemed longer."
Clayton was one of several people in the neighborhood who heard the crash and ran up a hill toward the wooded area where the plane fell.
He saw the tail and the cone, and everything else was on fire.
Joey Dixon also ran up the hill after he and his 13-year-old son saw the plane come down. He called 911 and ran, hoping there was some help he could give.
"We were hoping to find somebody OK," Dixon said. "We didn't find anybody."
